


Nobody's Home

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Depression, F/F, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:21:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21620314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: "...I was always hoping that maybe I could be enough for you.""...That's the problem, M. I just don't think anything will ever be enough for me."
Relationships: Evie/Mal (Disney)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 91





	Nobody's Home

It was a disconcerting thing, the way time could pick and choose when it did and didn't want to work.  
  
For Mal, time stopped the moment Carlos's strained and tinny voice was in her ear, finally coming through on the other end of a phone call.  
  
"Carlos, hey. I just now saw all the missed calls," she balanced her phone on her shoulder as she readjusted her hold on the rather large sketchbook and box of pencils she carried with her. "Sorry nothing got through, you know there's like, no reception out in the woods. But I'm heading back to the school, just give me ten minutes and I'll—"  
  
 _"Mal,"_ Carlos interrupted in that strained and tinny voice. _"...Mal, it's Evie."_  
  
Mal stopped in her tracks. With the forest at her back and Auradon Prep in the near distance, the weathered gray of its stone parapets just within sight, she thought back on the oddly long list of "Missed Call" messages she'd absentmindedly glazed over as she answered her phone on her way out of the woods.  
  
"...What about Evie?"  
  
She was suddenly turning ice cold, an unnatural chill creeping through as if her very blood was freezing in its veins. So many missed calls from Carlos. Such a strange tension in his voice and his words.  
  
 _"She was supposed to pick up some dress stuff she had delivered to the front office, but when she didn't show, Jane went to your dorm to drop it off for her. S-she knocked, a-and there was no answer, so—"_  
  
"Carlos!!" Mal snapped. Her phone was in her hand now, clenched so very tight in her shaking grip. She didn't need to tell Carlos to get on with it, he understood.  
  
 _"...The door was unlocked, J-Jane found her on the floor. She wasn't moving, she was breathing weird, she...Mal, the aspirin she keeps for all those stress headaches..."_  
  
Ice. Ice stabbing at Mal's veins, no longer anything remotely resembling blood. Everything frozen. Everything still. Time, her body, her heart, all of it. The only things that seemed to move now were her stomach, twisting and knotting painfully, and her hands, trembling so violently it was a bonafide wonder her phone and drawing things didn't go spilling onto the grass.  
  
The words wouldn't form, not in her head, and certainly not on her lips. The thoughts were there, but only as one chaotic mess, abstract and formless and somehow, very very loud. Almost screaming. An endless chorus of screams blaring away in her mind, ringing in her ears.  
  
 _"She's okay Mal,"_ Carlos quickly said _. "I-I mean, as okay as she can be after...Jane found her in time."_  
  
"Where—??"  
  
There, there was a word. Hard to force out when Mal's throat was tight and dry and she felt like she was going to throw up, but she fought it out anyway.  
  
 _"Jane and I are with her at the hospital, Jay's already gone on his way back to get you, just hang on."_  
  
Breathing hard. Mal was breathing so hard, struggling for air, like she was seconds away from suffocating. "Hang on"? Did Carlos really just tell her to "hang on" as if the world wasn't spinning around her, as if the ground underneath her feet wasn't falling away as they spoke?  
  
She didn't remember saying goodbye to Carlos as she hung up, she honestly wasn't sure if she'd said anything at all. The only thing she knew now was that she was running. The ten minute walk back to the campus grounds was sprinted in a timeless blur, legs and lungs burning in a fiery inferno and Mal just not at all caring. Jay's car was already there, idling in front of the hedge garden when she made it back, and Mal didn't even stop. She dodged the classmates that spotted her and started her way with concerned expressions on their faces like she was Jay on the Tourney field and practically dived into the passenger's seat, throwing her sketchbook and pencils to the floor with a terribly reckless abandon that _never_ once claimed her as far as art was concerned.  
  
"Mal," Jay fought his seatbelt and immediately leaned over to hug her so tight, feeling her shaking and feverish in his arms. "Mal, she's alright."  
  
Mal didn't even notice she was crying until she pulled away and saw the dark dots of tears wetting the shoulder of Jay's shirt.  
  
"...Jay, _please,_ just drive."  
  
That, he could certainly do.  
  
They'd parted ways at the lunch table that afternoon. Mal told Evie she would head to the woods behind the school after the last period of the day to sketch some flowers for art class. A stupid, frilly, typical-of-Auradon assignment, but Mal was not about to let herself get a failing grade in art. Evie told Mal she would be in the dorm sewing, trying to finish outfits for all her eagerly waiting 4 Hearts customers. Mal hugged her. Evie said "See you later".  
  
To think that such a mundane and unremarkable exchange had just suddenly come so close to being the last time Mal would ever see her again...she absolutely felt like she would throw up, resting her pounding head on the glass of the window and closing her eyes so the world zipping by outside couldn't make her any dizzier.  
  
"...Mal, your seatbelt," Jay quietly reminded her, gaze darting back and forth between Mal and the road.  
  
Her seatbelt. It seemed like such a trivial thing at the moment, the last of Mal's concerns, but to appease Jay she opened her bleary eyes to roughly yank on the seatbelt and fasten herself in with an aggressive _"click"._ Ironic of him to be concerned with safety when he himself appeared to be speeding, the needle on his dashboard inching higher and higher until he caught himself and eased a foot off the gas. His grip around the steering wheel was tight, almost painful, his knuckles going white under the strain.  
  
"Did Evie ever say anything to you about—??" Jay frantically began his question but stopped himself short almost right away. "...No, I suppose she didn't. None of this would be happening right now if she did."  
  
A single sob escaped from Mal, to which she squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. It wasn't from Jay's words, but from the sheer overwhelming madness of the fact that in just a matter of minutes her entire world had just been flipped on its head, changed forever.  
  
Almost destroyed.  
  
"I knew she'd been fighting this for such a long time, but I never thought..." Jay helplessly spoke aloud for the sole purpose of filling the silence. He wouldn't be able to take silence right now. The droning hum of his car rolling along would drive him insane.  
  
Fighting. Jay had just called it fighting. It seemed fitting that he would, he saw many things in life in terms of fights, or struggles, or battles of wills. He called it fighting. Mal called it dying.  
  
Day after day she had watched as her Evie seemed to die a little bit more, her smiles disappearing and her otherworldly light fading, her will falling away and leaving her lost. For a few years now her Evie had been slipping away piece by piece, little by little. Eating less, sleeping terribly, or doing nothing _but_ sleeping, crawling into bed not long after dinner and leaving homework, dresses, even herself untouched. The Evie that first came to Auradon with Mal considered going to bed without taking off makeup a cardinal sin. The Evie that Mal was familiar with now just didn't care.  
  
But not all the days were bad. Sometimes they were just the way they used to be. Like when Mal woke up some mornings and saw Evie already about—padding adorably around the room on quiet tiptoes to avoid making any noise as she put together an outfit—she would just flop back down on her pillow and smile. Those were the signs of a good day.  
  
She always thought that it was Auradon. The pressures of prep school, and the pressures of running a business, of being a stranger in a brand new land; it was enough to dampen and darken anyone's spirit, even Evie's. So with senior year upon them, Mal had hope. The promise of graduation and the escape of the daily tedium was on the horizon. Soon they'd all be living life entirely on their own terms, for the _very_ first time. It gave Mal hope that Evie wouldn't have to fight anymore.  
  
"...She never kept this inside, Jay. She didn't deal with it alone. Some nights we'd spend hours laying in bed just talking through what she was thinking and how she felt," Mal murmured. Her own voice sounded so far away to her. "...I really thought it helped. _God_ , I thought it helped that she didn't have to keep everything inside."  
  
All of a sudden she was hyperaware of the cell phone in her hand, how foreign and out of place it felt. Just like her, lost in an uncomfortable sort of out-of-body experience, not entirely sure if she was really there or not.  
  
There was an instinct to call Evie. Mal's fingers were tensed to unlock the screen and give Evie's name a tap right on the little glittering crown emoji. When she dismissed the thought it just sprang right back up, a demented jack-in-the-box cruelly toying with Mal's frayed emotions and shattered nerves. Call Evie. Call Evie. Call her. Just listen to her voice, hear for yourself that she's okay. Mal knew there would be no answer, that Evie was in no position to entertain phone calls or even anywhere remotely near her phone to begin with.  
  
"...Jay, you have to drive faster."  
  
"No, Mal. Us getting pulled over isn't going to help right now. When I left the hospital Evie wasn't even awake yet, they wouldn't let us in."  
  
"And what if she's awake now??" Mal snapped. "What if she opens her eyes and the first thing she sees is that _no one_ is there with her and—!"  
  
"Stop it. Do not do this to yourself," Jay's jaw clenched. "...Or to me, for that matter. Jane and Carlos are right outside her door, the second they're allowed in, they'll get in. The last thing Evie is going to be right now is alone."  
  
Alone. If only Evie hadn't been alone in the first place. If only Mal wasn't wandering around the woods for hours with the _stupid_ pansies like some kind of _stupid_ Auradon princess, she could've—!! ...Evie shouldn't have been left alone. Jay looked over and saw it all playing out across Mal's face, twisting her features with guilt and massive heartache.  
  
"...Don't even think about putting any of this on yourself," Jay warned. "You're one of the best things in Evie's life."  
  
"...Today was..." Mal swallowed hard around the stony lump in her throat. "...Today was one of the good days. When we were getting dressed she came out of the bathroom and gave the cutest little twirl to show off her skirt, she actually had breakfast, she came down to lunch...all she talked about was 4 Hearts. It was hard for her to work this week and she was finally ready to sit down and catch up on all the outfits she was behind on."  
  
Jay somberly shook his head.  
  
"We both know that sometimes Evie just gets hit out of nowhere, Mal. That's the problem, she could be having the best day ever, but all it takes is one stupid minute to turn everything around."  
  
"Then _how_ in the world am I ever supposed to help her?!" Mal practically screamed. The image of Evie unconscious and unmoving on their dorm room floor flashed horribly to life in her mind's eye.  
  
"I don't know, Mal!! I don't—!!" Jay stopped and took a deep breath, clenching the steering wheel so hard he thought it might just snap. "...I don't know anything right now. I'm just focused on getting us to the hospital in one piece. We can figure out all the hows and the whys later, for now we just need to concentrate on being with Evie. Whatever we're feeling right now, she must have been feeling it a thousand times worse to do this to herself. She needs us."  
  
"She needs us? She almost _left_ us! She almost left _me!!_ She..."  
  
Being behind the wheel didn't afford Jay the luxury of squeezing his eyes shut against the tears trying to fight free.  
  
"...It isn't her fault," he quietly said.  
  
Mal quelled the frustrated tidal wave of anger that kept rising to life and falling dead away within her.  
  
"...No, I know that...I'm sorry. I'm just really all over the place right now," Mal buried her face in her still-shaking hands.  
  
"We didn't lose her, Mal. Just keep telling yourself that. Never mind 'almost'. We _didn't."_  
  
Losing Evie. There was a phrase that made absolutely no sense to Mal. She knew 'losing' and she knew 'Evie', but the two of them together didn't even sound like words to her at all.  
  
Mal couldn't speak anymore. Jay had to, to keep the car ride from descending into that unbearable silence, but Mal was no longer listening. It was as if they were driving through some kind of horrid and sickly tar; Mal couldn't help but think it would be faster if she just got out and ran. Time was mocking her over and over again until finally, _finally_ , she saw it.  
  
Mal had never been to the hospital before, but still she could tell what it was from the way it loomed imposingly; from the sense of dread the mere sight of it filled her with. A place of life, healing, second chances, but right now—given the circumstances—Mal could only see it as a place of loss. Of disease.  
  
Of death.  
  
A free parking space ready and waiting right at the front of the hospital was a small mercy, sparing Mal and Jay from running agonizing circles around and around the parking lot. In spite of her infuriating urgency to just _get there_ already, Mal now found herself stone still as Jay killed the engine and plunged them into empty silence without even the saving grace of a rumbling motor to fill their ears. Jay unbuckled his seatbelt, got his door open, but still Mal hadn't moved.  
  
"...Hey," Jay reached over to gently nudge her with the back of his hand. "She's waiting for you."  
  
"You don't even know if she's awake," Mal bristled, staring straight ahead at the foreboding building.  
  
"No, but I'd like to believe. That she's awake, that she's ready to see us. Even if she's not awake you _know_ she's still waiting for you."  
  
"Me," Mal scoffed at the notion. "Waiting for me? How much could I possibly mean to Evie if I couldn't even keep her from..."  
  
Mal trailed off, physically unable to say it.  
  
"...You don't know that that's true, Mal," Jay's voice was so gentle, surprisingly calm. "Sometimes doctors and hospitals can only do so much. Maybe you were the one that really kept Evie hanging on, kept her fighting. She had to be in the most _excruciating_ pain to do this to herself, but when she had the choice to come back to us, she took it. For me, for Carlos...and especially for you."  
  
Mal's lip quivered entirely out of her control. Evie was in excruciating pain. Before, during, and now even after. Pain that Mal couldn't protect her from no matter how desperately she tried.  
  
It was as if Jay could read her mind.  
  
"You're a human, Mal, not an angel. You can't save her from everything. But what you _can_ do is always be there for her. Like right now. So come on, don't keep her waiting."  
  
He got out of the car, closing the door behind him with a bit of a slam and circling around the hood to open Mal's door for her.  
  
"Mal?" Jay offered her his hand.  
  
Suddenly, Mal didn't think she could do this. All the way here the only thing in the world she wanted was to see Evie, hear Evie, drown every single sense in Evie, but now that they were mere walls and stairways away from each other, Mal froze.  
  
"...I'm scared," she admitted in a whisper.  
  
She didn't know of what. She couldn't pinpoint it in the slightest. Like the grim foreboding she felt just looking at the building from the outside, the thought of going _inside_ and seeing Evie frail and trapped in the bed of a too-white hospital room twisted her stomach.  
  
"...I'm scared too," Jay said after a deep breath. "Sort of feels like the whole world got turned on its head, way too quickly for me to make any kind of peace with it."  
  
Mal nodded in agreement.  
  
"But I think seeing her will make things seem a little better," Jay went on.  
  
"...What if it doesn't?"  
  
Jay sighed.  
  
"...Either way, she's still our Evie. And we've got her back, no matter what."  
  
He offered his hand again, and for a couple seconds he still wasn't sure if Mal would take it. But then her seatbelt was unbuckled, and she was lacing her fingers through Jay's and holding his hand tight.  
  
The staff at the front counter recognized Jay from earlier, and recognized Mal irregardless, but recognition or not nothing was stopping the pair from striding right along like they owned the place, slowing down for nothing and no one. Jay knew the way like the back of his hand, guiding Mal across the lobby and right to an elevator, hitting the button with the side of his fist.  
  
Everything in Mal's world was moving in slow motion again, from the opening and closing of the elevator doors to the agonizing climb up to the higher floors. Jay was right, the whole world had been turned on its head. In just seconds. In just the span of a phone call. Mal wanted to go back, something inside of her that felt like the very essence of her being was screaming at her to find a way back to the world that she knew and had woken up safe and sound in. Evie struggled terribly in that world, but at least she had never given up hope. Never in that world had the inhuman weight of her depression crushed her will to live.  
  
Jay's hands on her shoulders led her out of the elevator when the doors opened back up, and already she could spot familiar shapes and faces far down at the end of the hall.  
  
"Carlos!!"  
  
Mal supposed she shouldn't have ran, what with the rooms lining the corridor on both sides of her intending to be places of rest, but by now she was sick of the feeling of going nowhere fast. Carlos and Jane sat outside a room identifying itself as "403", the both of them standing up and turning at the sound of Mal's voice.  
  
She ran right into Carlos's arms and was met with the biggest of hugs, one where she squeezed her eyes shut and just savored it as best she could.  
  
"Perfect timing," Carlos said, his voice in Mal's ear. "The nurse said Evie should be coming out of it soon."  
  
Mal's heart skipped a beat at the news.  
  
"Speaking of perfect timing..." she let go of Carlos and gave a fierce hug of her own to Jane. "...Thank you. Jane, thank you."  
  
"You don't need to thank me," Jane sniffed. "I'm just _so_ grateful I got to Evie when I did. If I'd waited even a minute before I went to go drop off her things..."  
  
Jane couldn't finish, for she couldn't bear the thought of it. The thought made Mal a little shaky herself, trembling as she drew away from Jane and folded her arms tight across her chest.  
  
"...You said she's starting to come out of it?" she asked of Carlos.  
  
He nodded, taking a deep breath to gather himself before he started in on the hard-to-discuss explanations. Mal could see the mental preparation taking place, and quickly decided that if Carlos wasn't eager to talk about it, she wasn't eager to hear about it.  
  
"I don't need the specifics," she raised a hand to stop him from recanting any grim details of what Evie had undergone since arriving at the hospital, and Carlos was clearly relieved to be able to stick to a simple rundown.  
  
"They had to clean all those pills out of her system, lots of wires and tubes that I saw she's still hooked up to when the nurse left after checking on her just now, so don't freak," Carlos both warned and prepared Mal and Jay for the state they'd be seeing Evie in. "It...um...it looks really scary, but it's helping her."  
  
"So we're good to go in and see her?" Jay asked.  
  
"Yeah, now that she's close to waking up. We were just waiting on you to get back with Mal."  
  
No longer shaking anxiously, Mal was now flat-out shivering as if the hospital around her was a fortress of ice.  
  
"Actually, could I maybe...go in first with her? Alone?" she bravely asked, so bravely it was as if someone else had spoken the words on her behalf.  
  
Jay, Carlos, and Jane all exchanged a look of consensus with one another, but it really wasn't as if they needed to. They all knew what the answer was.  
  
"Of course, Mal," Jay assured her.  
  
"...We'll be right out here in the hallway," Jane added. "Take as long as you need to."  
  
As long as she needed to? Mal needed an eternity with Evie, or at least it most definitely felt like it. An eternity to hold her near and dear and promise that someday things would be better, even though Mal held absolutely no certainty in that promise.  
  
She hesitated there among her friends, until Jay's hand on her back gently urged her towards the door. Room 403. Evie's room. Evie's _hospital_ room.  
  
She went inside.  
  
Ice filled all of Mal's veins once more; Carlos's warning had not been enough to prepare her for the sight of Evie pale and bedridden, her natural glow gone and tubes like nests of slithering snakes keeping her connected to rumbling machines. But she was alive. Mal finally took Jay's advice and just kept repeating those words to herself. Yes, it was scary, and yes, it was horrifying, but all of it meant that Evie was alive.  
  
Mal treaded cautiously across the room as if trying _not_ to wake Evie, like she was only napping and in desperate need of rest instead of coming out of something far too close to a coma for anyone's liking. The first thing she noticed when she properly reached Evie's bedside were her soft breaths, in and out. Gentle, easy, with no signs of strain or labor. If Mal didn't know any better, living through the most devastating afternoon of her life, she'd swear Evie really was just napping.  
  
"E...Evie, I'm here."  
  
No response save for the steady beeping of machines. Steady beeps were good, Mal at least knew that much, but Carlos had been right—it was very scary to look at.  
  
"...Can you hear me?" she asked.  
  
Mal hated it. Evie was far too pale and far too bruised where she'd obviously been poked and prodded with all manner of needles and whatnot. This was not what her Evie was supposed to look like. Weak and beaten down and...lifeless. Lifeless. How dare that word linger in Mal's mind.  
  
This was a nightmare, not a fairytale, and she knew that nothing she could do would lift the curse and wake her slumbering princess, but still Mal kissed her anyway. She didn't need it to lift a curse, she just needed it so she could feel Evie, to assure herself that Evie was real and right there in front of her. Her soft kiss found Evie's lips dry and cracked, and for a heartbreaking second, that was all there was to it.  
  
Until a small and very exhausted kiss pressed itself back against Mal's, so tired but trying so hard for her. Mal pulled away in surprise, her heart practically stopping.  
  
"Evie?"  
  
Evie had to fight her eyes open, Mal watched her struggle. Those weary eyelids must have felt like a hundred pounds to her, and all Mal could think to do was take Evie's hand and give it a squeeze. Carefully, so as not to hurt her, as if Evie were made of glass or something paper-thin that could easily shatter or tear right now. She was so sick of watching Evie having to fight for the mundane, she just wanted to open her mouth and scream at the mundane to _leave Evie alone!_ , just _let her be!!_ Opening her eyes, getting out of bed, getting dressed, they were all everyday things that often gave Evie such trouble, and Mal despised them for it.  
  
Evie's beautiful eyes were heavy and bloodshot, blinking terribly in the harsh fluorescent light. Soon enough though she was looking up at Mal, studying every stressed and strained facet of her face as Mal watched her intently.  
  
Mal could've burst into tears. Thank _every single god_ up on Mount Olympus that Evie was alright. But she had no idea what to say now. Hi? How do you feel? They both seemed vastly inappropriate given the grim gravity of the situation, but Mal couldn't just stand there in stark silence forever.  
  
"I love you," she finally said, deciding that nothing else in the world would suffice.  
  
"...I love you too," Evie's voice was hoarse, and so scratchy. Nothing at all like the luscious rasp it usually was.  
  
She repeated the words back to Mal automatically, almost robotically. But Mal didn't fret. She knew that Evie meant them. Evie always meant them, no matter what.  
  
"...This is crazy, Evie," Mal sniffled, feeling that telltale sting pricking at her eyes. "It's like I _just_ saw you at lunch this afternoon, and now you're here??"  
  
There. Well, between being in a hospital and being dead, Mal knew she really had no right to complain. Evie's head was throbbing, and very very fuzzy, but still a cauldron of thoughts was broiling within. Sluggishly, yes, but still. Was Mal looking for an apology? Letting the air quiet so Evie could give one to her? Did Evie even want to give one? Was she sorry?? Sorry she'd caused Mal such grief, perhaps, but grief was something she was sure she'd been causing Mal long before the deepest moment of despair landed her in the hospital.  
  
Because the simple truth was that she wasn't the Evie that Mal had fallen in love with. The Evie that Mal fell in love with had ambitions and smiles and a carefree heart; the girl laying in bed with an IV stuck to her didn't resemble that Evie at all, and hadn't for a couple years now. Why did Mal still bother with her?  
  
"...What do you want me to tell you, Mal?" she sighed heavily, letting her eyes briefly fall shut again for a few seconds as if keeping them open was just too much of a strain.  
  
Mal was still holding her hand. Evie could feel her stiffen.  
  
"Evie!! I just—!!" Mal stopped herself, wouldn't let herself shout. "...I don't need you to tell me anything. You don't have to give me any explanations. The only thing I've ever wanted to know is how to help you. I am always here for you, I've seen you at your best and your worst, so why...I wouldn't have judged you, Evie. I wouldn't have thought badly of you. All you had to do was call me, or even text me, and I would've come running. You always tell me what you're thinking and how you're feeling...why couldn't you this time?"  
  
"...Maybe because I wasn't feeling anything," Evie murmured, staring up at the ceiling tiles.  
  
A frigid chill ran through Mal.  
  
"...I just don't understand. When I left you at lunch you actually seemed excited to work on your 4 Hearts clothes when school let out. Evie, I know this. Believe me, I take notice when you're excited."  
  
Mal didn't understand how even Evie could fall down into such a dark place in only a matter of hours. She'd just told Evie she didn't need any explanations, but her head and her heart were plagued with so many questions. She almost lost her best friend today, her family. And she wanted to know why.  
  
"...What happened, Evie?"  
  
Evie stayed silent. In all honesty, Mal spoke in such a devastated whisper that she wasn't entirely sure if Evie heard her or not.  
  
"...We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Mal told her, speaking up a bit. "But—"  
  
"I couldn't do it."  
  
Evie tugged her hand free of Mal's grip and covered her eyes with it like the ghastly lights overhead were just too much. Mal took a careful seat on the edge of the bed, making extra sure she didn't jostle Evie with her movements.  
  
"...Couldn't do what? Your sewing?" Mal had long since learned that depression made motivation a rare commodity.  
  
"I got it all laid out. The clothes, my sketches, fabrics and my sewing machine. I had everything ready to go. And then I just...stopped."  
  
Mal had been there on more than one occasion when Evie had "just stopped". She understood how hard it was. Evie had described it to her before, fumbling on how to put it into words but eventually likening it to batteries being run down, feeling your energy getting drained by the second and knowing there was nothing you could do to stop the power from going out.  
  
"You've gone through this before, though," Mal softly reminded her.  
  
Evie suddenly wasn't in the mood for soft.  
  
"And what am I supposed to do?? Keep going through it again and again, over and over?!" in Evie's state she wasn't exactly shouting, but still the strain in her gravelly voice was clear. "It doesn't stop! It never stops, and I can't keep doing this! How am I supposed to run a business if I can't even work? How am I supposed to be a fashion designer if I can't even design? No matter how hard I try I just can't bring myself to do the things I used to love to do, the things I should _still_ love to do. So if this...if this is supposed to be the rest of my life then I just don't want it, Mal."  
  
Her lip quivered uncontrollably, and then she was crying. Hopeless and helpless sobs from the bloodshot eyes hidden behind her hand. It twisted her face with pure despair, the despair of no future, no relief, a never-ending cycle of a hollow and empty life.  
  
Mal cried too, more quietly than Evie but just as helplessly. The tears were silent streams down her cheeks as she buried her face in her hand and gritted her teeth against the sobs of her own that tried to beat their way out of her chest.  
  
That was how the two stayed for quite awhile, time again playing its cruel tricks and deciding that, no, perhaps it wouldn't work here. Perhaps it wouldn't march on. In fact, it would rather _enjoy_ leaving one lost girl and one broken one weeping endlessly, saying nothing and doing nothing but falling apart together.  
  
Evie eventually quieted first, having already been exhausted to begin with and really not having the energy to keep crying as hard as she was. She was already broken down. She just couldn't fall any further. Mal stopped when Evie did, roughly wiping her eyes and her cheeks, frail emotions no longer provoked by the mere sound of Evie's crying.  
  
"E..." Mal slowly crumpled over like a balloon deflated of air, her forehead coming to rest on Evie's chest. "...I cannot lose you. I realize how unbelievably selfish I sound talking about me right now, but _please._ I will do anything and everything to help you, I promise...I don't want you to leave me."  
  
She could feel Evie's heartbeat. Even _that_ seemed weak and weary to her. If she didn't have Evie's monitor beeping beside her, screen lit up with encouraging greens and the telltale signs of "all clear", Mal would've been so scared.  
  
"Don't you see, Mal? You've already done anything and everything, and still I can't be helped."  
  
Mal lifted her head to fiercely shake it.  
  
"I don't believe that. I'm never going to sit back and just accept that this is your forever...we're going to find our way out together. That's always been my goal."  
  
Evie's head fell to the side on her pillow, carrying her gaze to the slatted blinds barring her view out the window.  
  
"...Your way out was taking too long."  
  
Hearing that made Mal's stomach knot up painfully. She completely understood it, coming from Evie's point of view, but that didn't at all mean she cared to hear it.  
  
"...I know that a lot has been taken away from you since all this began," Mal said. "I know you've lost so much, and nothing you did would fill those voids, but...deep down I was always hoping that maybe I could be enough for you."  
  
Evie was quiet. Mal wasn't sure if she was contemplating, or just ignoring her.  
  
"...That's the problem, M. I just don't think anything will ever be enough for me. Mal...I love you. All those Auradon stories taught us that love conquers all, but then we got to the real world, and we learned that it really doesn't. So what am I supposed to do now? What am I supposed to do when even _that_ isn't enough??"  
  
There was no answer that Mal could give her. Not even an optimistic lie to pacify her with for the time being.  
  
"I'm tired, Mal."  
  
Mentally, physically, emotionally; Mal didn't even bother asking. The answer of course was all of them at once.  
  
"...Should I leave?"  
  
Another dreadful pause where Mal couldn't tell if the girl beside her was contemplating, or ignoring.  
  
"...Please don't," Evie whispered.  
  
So Mal didn't. She sat there at the edge of the bed gazing down at Evie, body turned protectively towards her like a shield. But still she felt too far away from her, too distant. Too scared that Evie might fade away if she so much as took her eyes off of her for an instant. Just seeing her wasn't enough, Mal had to feel her now to be sure that everything was as it should be. She slowly combed her fingers through mussed up blue hair like she did in all the late night hours when she tried to soothe a tossing and turning Evie back to sleep. There in the familiar safety of their bed, of their dorm room, it worked like a charm. Here, Mal wasn't so sure. But here she wasn't trying to soothe Evie back to sleep.  
  
Here, she only hoped to soothe.  
  
"...The boys are here too, aren't they?" Evie questioned.  
  
Mal nodded even though Evie wasn't looking at her.  
  
"Out in the hallway. I just wanted to come in and see you first...I thought that maybe you would want that too. But yeah, Jay and Carlos are right outside, waiting with Jane."  
  
"Jane..." Evie woodenly repeated.  
  
"...Do you remember her finding you?"  
  
Now it was Evie's turn to nod.  
  
"Just barely. I remember her voice. Not much else."  
  
"She saved your life."  
  
"I'll let you thank her for me."  
  
Mal's other hand curled into a tense fist.  
  
"Evie..." she spoke through gritted teeth. "Don't. Don't talk like her saving your life was a mistake."  
  
"Do you think they let my mom know? I bet they did, hospital protocol and everything. I bet she'd even be allowed into Auradon just to come see me. Except I don't see her rushing over to visit. Do you?" Evie muttered flatly, distractedly.  
  
 _"I_ came rushing over! Jay and Carlos and Jane did too! The people who _matter_ ran like bats out of hell to get to you, Evie!"  
  
"Mothers are supposed to matter too. Maybe if mine did I wouldn't have even ended up here in the first place."  
  
Mal gave a heavy sigh, reigning in her stressed exasperation.  
  
"...There are a lot of maybes, E. Maybe if your mother was kinder. Maybe if your childhood was better. Maybe if such an impossible and damaging need for perfection wasn't ingrained into your mind since before you could even talk...I don't know. Maybes don't really give us a lot to go on."  
  
Mal let her fingertips trail all the way down to the ends of Evie's hair before dropping her hand to her side.  
  
"But I know that I love you," she firmly said. "And I know that nothing in the world will ever make me stop."  
  
"Mal..."  
  
"No," Mal interrupted, hearing the notes of some sort of argument hanging on Evie's voice. "I am looking forward to so many more days together with you, good, bad, mediocre, whatever. I don't care. But I...I can't _do that_ if you aren't there to spend them with me, Evie."  
  
Mal fought back the rush of tears suddenly trying to choke her.  
  
"I wanted to be enough for you," she mournfully went on. "When fashion, friendship, or even the future wasn't enough to keep you holding on, I wanted to be the one who could do it. Maybe I just can't be. I'm realizing that now. But that does _not_ mean I'm going to stop trying, so you have to try for me too."  
  
"...Mal, I'm not some princess you can save from a dark and lonely tower. This isn't that kind of story. You know that. You have for a while," Evie spoke through dragging, almost mumbling lips.  
  
"...I don't want to lose you, Evie," Mal repeated her sentiments with a broken whisper. "Not ever, but _especially_ not like this. Not feeling hopeless and empty. Not hurting so much inside that you can't take another second of it. You don't deserve that. If you don't want to fight anymore then I'll fight for you, but please...just stay. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me and _nothing_ has changed that."  
  
She almost lost Evie today. If one single moment had gone in a different direction, she would have lost Evie forever.  
  
"I still don't know what you want me to tell you," Evie shook her head, still staring at the blinds over her window with frightening concentration.  
  
"Nothing, Evie. _I'm_ the one who's struggling for the words to say just how grateful I am that you're alive right now."  
  
Finally Evie's reddened eyes focused on Mal once more, studying her with just as much attention as she'd allowed the blinds.  
  
"You're never going to let me out of your sight again after this, are you?"  
  
"...It isn't like that. It's never going to be like that," Mal promised her. "This isn't about you needing to be under constant supervision like you're a child, it's about us always going through this together. Maybe I wasn't there for you as often as I thought I was, or I wasn't as strong as you needed me to be, but I'll change that, Evie. I will."  
  
For the briefest flicker of an instant, Evie almost looked like she could laugh.  
  
"I try to kill myself and you think that _you_ did something wrong?" she chided darkly.  
  
Knowing it was one thing, but hearing it said so starkly out loud was something else entirely.  
  
Evie tried to kill herself. She lost herself in a place that Mal never even imagined she could wind up lost in, not even on the absolute bleakest of days.  
  
"...Would you try to do it again?" Mal wasn't sure why she meekly asked a question she didn't want to hear the answer to.  
  
Evie looked up at Mal like said answer was written on her face, flickers of dazed confusion dancing within both girls' eyes.  
  
"...I didn't even think I'd do it today. I didn't have plans to do it, Mal, it just happened. It was just so easy. And nothing's been easy for me in a very long time. Mindless, really, one pill after another...maybe the easiest thing I've ever done."  
  
Easy was not how Mal would describe this conversation.  
  
"I got really sick when it caught up to me, and there was this deafening ringing in my ears that I hated," Evie went on, brow furrowing as she pushed through the haze in her mind and remembered. "But eventually everything went really quiet, and I was suddenly so sleepy. It felt a lot like being underwater, kind of dark and murky but still very peaceful...just like falling asleep."  
  
The tears Mal blinked back were painful, burning things.  
  
"Were you thinking of us?" she helplessly asked. "Jay, Carlos...me?"  
  
Evie tried to recall.  
  
"...Yes. I was thinking that you guys wouldn't have to worry about me anymore."  
  
Worrying about her. As if she were a problem. As if she were a burden. Mal cupped her hand to Evie's cheek; she was cold to the touch.  
  
"...I'd rather spend years worrying about you than live for one day without you," Mal said softly.  
  
For a second Evie's eyes widened, before the shine in them dulled just as quickly as it sparked to life.  
  
"...You don't really mean that," Evie murmured.  
  
"I've never meant anything more," Mal traced her thumb back and forth across Evie's skin, caring not about the chill.  
  
"You loved me because I had a bright smile and a bright heart."  
  
"I love you because you're Evie," Mal immediately corrected. "You don't need to smile for me, and you don't need to be a picture of happy perfection. All you need to do is stay with me, because I'm staying with you and helping you find your way out of this."  
  
"So what happens when we stop kidding ourselves and realize there _is_ no way out of this?" Evie frowned.  
  
"Then I'll help you get back to a life where at least the good days outnumber the bad. We can at least ask for that much."  
  
Evie closed her eyes in a long and slow blink. If Mal didn't know any better, didn't expect her haggard state to be playing tricks on her, she would've sworn that the tiniest of bemused grins was toying with Evie's lips.  
  
"You're so stubborn," Evie said. "...M, I'm not sure yet if I regret my life being saved or not. But what I definitely don't regret is the chance to see you again."  
  
Mal had the tiniest shred of hope that her words meant maybe, just maybe, she could indeed be enough for Evie someday.  
  
"I wasn't trying to hurt you, Mal," Evie solemnly said to her.  
  
Her familiar touch was back in Evie's hair again, intending to soothe once more.  
  
"I know you weren't. I know you would never. It wasn't about me."  
  
For the first time since Mal had stepped into that terrible room of sterile white walls and unforgiving light, Evie's hand sought out Mal's of its own accord, reaching over and holding as tight as she could.  
  
"...But I don't know what to do now," Evie told her in a choked and frightened voice. "...How am I supposed to move past this?"  
  
Mal wanted to be able to give her a sure, solid answer. Something confident, the answers they both needed. She wanted to be able to give it more than anything.  
  
"I think...I think we just need to go day by day. We stop worrying about the future and the bad that tomorrow _might_ bring. You and I just focus on the present."  
  
Mal looked into searching brown eyes and made sure that Evie noted the way she spoke in terms of "we".  
  
"I can't understand how you're not tired of having to work so hard for me," speaking of tired, Evie's words were accidentally overcome with a little yawn.  
  
"...This isn't work. This is just what love looks like."  
  
The burning honesty, Mal's pure heart; suddenly it was just too much for Evie, absolutely overwhelming her and flooding her vision with heated tears.  
  
"Mal..." she cried. "Mal, I'm sorry..."  
  
"No no no, don't apologize," Mal trembled as she leaned over and rested her forehead against Evie's. "You do not owe me any apology, E. Okay?? You do _not."_  
  
"Okay..." Evie nodded shakily, tilting her head up to leave a tearful kiss on Mal's lips. "Okay..."  
  
"...That's my girl," Mal returned her kiss and moved to nestle for a moment in the crook of Evie's neck.  
  
Evie was quickly calmed by Mal's close presence, the threat of heartbroken sobs quelling.  
  
"That feels nice. Having you there," she sniffed.  
  
"...Well, it's good to know that there's still some nice things left in the world," Mal murmured.  
  
She could feel Evie shaking her head, just the slightest.  
  
"But they're always too hard to find, M."  
  
"...I can help you look."  
  
Mal sat up, a bit to Evie's dismay, but it gave her the chance to watch Mal, to look deep into her eyes and really examine what she found there.  
  
"I'm both appreciative of and amazed by the positive attitude, but I just don't see how anything's ever going to change," she said.  
  
"No, you probably can't, not right now," Mal admitted with a saddened sigh. "But eventually, you will. I can't promise you that things will get better, but I _can_ promise you that things will be okay. You might not be able to imagine your future, but there's at least one thing I know about it, E."  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"...I'll be in it. No matter what."  
  
Suddenly, something magical lifting the oppressively suffocating gloom hanging around them, a light piercing the thick, abysmal dark.  
  
Evie smiled.  
  
A minuscule expression, certainly nothing jovial or anything remotely close to it; visibly so insignificant that if Mal hadn't already been paying such close attention to her she would've missed it entirely.  
  
"...E and M," Evie said with a touch of pride.  
  
Mal's face lit up, tears in her eyes.  
  
"E and M," she repeated. "Forever."  
  
Evie searched around the covers and found Mal's hand again, holding as tight as she could manage.  
  
"You'll be okay," Mal whispered.  
  
"...But I'm my mother's daughter. How am I ever going to settle for just 'okay'?" Evie's grip on Mal's hand weakened.  
  
Mal hurriedly shook her head.  
  
"You won't be settling. Okay is only the first step. Look, every curse can be broken, Evie. Maybe sometimes they leave little pieces of themselves behind, but they don't last forever. And neither will this."  
  
"...Mal, I know you. _You're_ not even sure of what you're saying right now," Evie sighed.  
  
"...E, you can't give up. I know you don't feel like it at all but you are _so_ much stronger than giving up."  
  
"Being strong is exhausting, and I'm already an exhausted person to begin with."  
  
Mal hung her head in defeated remorse, the lightness within her that flashed to life at the sight of Evie's smile vanishing into thin air just as quickly as it had appeared.  
  
"I guess the platitudes really aren't helping right now...I'm so sorry, Evie. I just don't know what else to say."  
  
"...Sometimes it's alright when we don't say anything at all."  
  
Well, in that case, Mal was inclined to agree.  
  
Evie slowly moved herself over, careful of all the wires and whatnot that kept her bound to the machines at her bedside. Mal was careful too as she pulled the covers back and climbed in next to Evie. And Evie curled so close against her, laying her head on Mal's shoulder as soon as she was settled in.  
  
This, for a moment, was their normal. The two of them cuddled together with Mal's lazy kisses laid atop Evie's head.  
  
"...M, you're shaking," Evie noted. She could feel it.  
  
Mal didn't say a word. Of course she was shaking, she kind of had a lot to process right now. The two of them had just skirted closer to Evie's death than Mal would've ever wanted to venture, forever shattering the fantasy world she lived in where nothing could ever possibly happen to Evie. Now, she was trapped in a nightmare world where she could make all the grand promises and even grander gestures that she wanted, but still there was no guarantee that she could keep Evie safe from herself. No guarantee that the suffocating hollowness Evie lived in wouldn't creep back in and try to steal her away again.  
  
What if it was more than not being enough? What if she just wasn't what Evie needed? All this time, Mal had wanted to be her hero—ironically so, as the daughter of a villain. Not for the glory and recognition that heroism promised, not for any sort of sense of pride...but simply because she loved Evie. She didn't want to save a damsel in distress, she wanted to save a girl who truly needed help to find her way out of the darkened haze around her, a girl just as precious to the world as she was to Mal.  
  
But wanting and being were two vastly different ideals. Perhaps at the end of the day, Mal was nothing more than the daughter of a villain. Nothing close to a hero. Nothing close to what Evie needed. And perhaps in spite of Jay's, and Carlos's, and even her own hushed words spoken to her from within her conscience, Mal blamed all of this on herself.  
  
"T-The, um...t-the boys are still waiting outside," Mal's lips trembled, wracked with guilt as she changed the subject. "And Jane. If you're ready to see them too. If not we'll understand, too much too soon and all."  
  
What did Evie want? Was she ready to face Jay and Carlos and Jane, all of them crushed with worry and overwhelming Evie with their sheer relief? It wasn't as if she dreaded seeing them all at once, they were her best friends. But Mal was her safe space. Depression may have brutally worn down the bubble of innocence that had surrounded Evie her whole life, but trying to kill herself had destroyed it entirely. Mal was the only thing keeping her desperately clinging to some small shred of it, yet even with her at Evie's side it was a fight to keep hanging on.  
  
"...What will they say?" Evie fretted.  
  
"...The same things I did. That they love you and can't lose you and will do anything to bring you back to how things used to be."  
  
Pretty sentiments to utter when you weren't yet being tested on how well you could follow through on them. Platitudes, Mal had called them. Things that the dreadful occasion and lack of better words had told Mal she should say. Evie was right, sometimes it was better when they didn't say anything at all. Maybe Mal should've just walked in with an "I love you" and left it at that. For nothing could make the day any better, no words in the world could bring either of them any reassurance.  
  
"...In a little bit, Mal. I'll be ready for them in a little bit."  
  
"...There's no rush. They'll understand."  
  
"Yeah...I _am_ grateful you came in first, though."  
  
Mal's shaking just wouldn't stop.  
  
"...I'm always thinking about what's best for you," she said.  
  
Already Mal was sick to death of this room, oppressively bright with its horrid sterile smell. She just wanted to get Evie out of here, take her back to the comfort of their own room at Auradon Prep where they could cuddle under familiar sheets and fall asleep to the sounds of the tv before facing tomorrow one minute at a time, together.  
  
"The worst part of all this, Mal? ...I can't guarantee anyone that I won't end up right back here again. Maybe once I could, but after today...there's no promising myself I'll do better in the future if I can never even see that future to begin with."  
  
No future. The reality of the bleak and frightening life that Evie had stumbled into. But another reality was that without Evie, Mal didn't exactly have much of a future either.  
  
"You can't look too far ahead if it's too much for you to take, Evie. And none of us should be wasting time on what hasn't happened yet anyway. Today is what matters the most."  
  
It seemed that Mal just couldn't stop the platitudes, what with Evie so lost and the silence that befell each of her pleading words just begging to be broken.  
  
"You take one step, and then you step again. It doesn't matter how fast or how many...just as long as you keep going, E."  
  
Evie didn't respond.  
  
"...Anytime you want me to stop talking, all you have to do is say so," Mal told her with a weak, utterly defeated chuckle.  
  
Evie lazily shook her head before nuzzling it closer against Mal and shutting her eyes.  
  
"I always prefer your voice to my own," she murmured, so sleepy.  
  
Mal could hear it, the soul-deep exhaustion that weighed down Evie's body and speech. How much of it was from an afternoon of procedures in the emergency room, she couldn't tell.  
  
"...Maybe a little nap before the others come in," Mal suggested.  
  
Ever so watchful of her IV, Evie cautiously draped her arm across Mal and hugged her like one big stuffed animal.  
  
"I know you just woke up," Mal went on. "But you sound like you could use the rest."  
  
There was no argument from Evie, for Mal could already feel her body relaxing and settling in against her.  
  
"...Sleep is the only place where things are okay," Evie said. "I guess that's why I try to get so much of it."  
  
"Sleep is nice," Mal agreed. "And so are dreams. Dreams are how I get to see you even when we're not awake."  
  
"...Auradon's made you very sentimental," Evie sounded like she might have yet another hint of a smile waiting on her lips.  
  
"I guess so...I just don't know what to do without you. You're my best friend, Evie."  
  
"You're mine."  
  
Evie spoke automatically again, like it was some sort of reflex. If it were anyone other than her, Mal would've been concerned that she was only being told what she wanted to hear.  
  
"...From Isle to Auradon we've always been together. And if The Isle couldn't tear us apart, then I'm not ever going to let anything else do it either," Mal said. "We'll put today behind us, as soon as you wake up."  
  
"As soon as _we_ wake up?" Evie suggested instead.  
  
All at once, like Evie had spoken the magic words, a tidal wave of exhaustion crashed over Mal. Maybe it wasn't the comfort of their own bed, but still they had each other, tucked close together. Mal reached over to hug Evie just as she was hugging her, the two of them entwined in one another's arms.  
  
"...Yeah, E. As soon as we wake up."  
  
Mal often held Evie like she never intended on letting her go, and right now was certainly no exception. The last harrowing hour was front and center in her mind, every vivid detail of it. It was all she could do not to burst into tears and disturb Evie's rest.  
  
Take one step, and then step again.  
  
It would do Mal a world of good to follow her own advice right now. So never mind the future, and never mind what had already passed.  
  
Right now, they were napping. That was all there was to it.  
  
When they awoke, it wouldn't be to the worlds they were longing to wake up in, but nevertheless, it would be a start. Mal was just grateful beyond all words and emotions that Evie would be waking up in the first place. Already she was drifting off at Mal's side, drained beyond the measure of it.  
  
The day had already grown so long, and Mal's broken heart had stretched her thin. She squeezed her eyes shut, both to encourage sleep and fight off tears, finally quelling her trembling for the sake of Evie's comfort.  
  
"...I love you, Evie," Mal murmured under her breath.  
  
She seemed so serene in her sleep, so sound, that just by looking at her it was hard to believe she lived in anything other than peace. Perhaps love wasn't enough for her, perhaps she needed something more to make it through the dark. So maybe love didn't do as much good as Mal had spent years desperately hoping and praying it would.  
  
But that didn't mean she was ever going to stop.


End file.
